What is your purpose? (e.g., informative, entertaining, persuasive)
Eliminating the trolls and lurkers. The purpose of our lesson plan is to teach students how to meaningfully interact and exist in an online environment – to develop students’ face-to-face and digital communication skills, in order to maximize their online deliberative discussions (in pursuit of collaborative knowledge generation). Students will learn how to evaluate online sources in order to support their opinions and claims, and how to carry out a positive and productive online debate. In terms of the bigger picture, the goal of having the students become proficient in a formal online debate – supported with links to reputable sources, infographics, video clips and so on – is so students learn the value of using reputable sources in their online discussions (and knowing in what context it is appropriate to use each source as a support). The goal is also to have students develop the habits of mind needed to have productive and meaningful dialogues, as the longterm goal is for students to be able to engage in deliberative discussions in various online forums. Students will learn discussion-forum community standards that focus on: non-inflammatory claims and an expectation of all posters to self-monitor the community for quality and content. Finally, at the end of the unit, students will be able to identify the similarities, differences in face-to-face versus online interactions (specifically synchronous and asynchronous) and the affordances of both types of interactions.
Who is your specific target audience?
Intermediate/Secondary school students (grades 7 – 10)
What genre or type of message do you wish to share with others?
Students will be creating a discussion forum. While we will be choosing to use a free online discussion forum for teachers, the skills they learn in this lesson will be transferable to other online forums – from moodles to blogs to tweets to Facebook and so on.
What is the key content of your message?
Our message to students is that the substance and delivery of their message matters – particularly when it comes to encouraging discussion and advancing understanding.
What values will be communicated through image, language, and sound?
Through this lesson, we want to teach, reinforce and perpetuate a respect for all voices and perspectives. Furthermore, we want to foster in students the desire to engage in collaborative and democratic discussions where there is a mutual desire to seek the truth and clarify concepts/ideas. As this will be taught using face-to-face and online interactions (synchronous and asynchronous), we want to highlight to students the importance of giving time for thought and having concrete/reputable sources to substantiate one’s claims.
What creative techniques will you use to attract and hold audience attention?
We will begin the unit with an exploration of what are reputable online sources using the fake activism website devoted to the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus: http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/ Students will explore the various components of this site and deconstruct the elements that are misleading and make it seem like a reputable source. The students will also explore the multitude of online sources they could potentially draw from when supporting a claim: video news reports, news articles, scholarly articles, expert sites, infographics, and so on. Furthermore, they will be able to determine when it may be appropriate to use each source and why, when supporting a claim. When this is finished, the students will explore some controversial issues, ultimately choosing one topic with which to hold a debate: http://www.procon.org/ To model a successful online discussion that draws on multimedia support sources, an example will be shown to students. When the students have chosen their topic, each side will spend some time crafting their opening argument, which will be limited to a certain number of characters (as in a Tweet, drawing on students out of school digital literacies) and will present their opening topic in class. This is the start of a face-to-face debate to stir up controversy and emotion in the students and incite interest in the issue. The purpose of this is so that when it is time to move the debate to the online forum, they are invested enough that they want to engage in the discussion and share their opinions. The opening statement is then posted to an online forum where the students begin to debate the issue. The debating roles are decided on by the students (teacher may act as facilitator if necessary)
The DebatingRoles include: Claim checkers (check claims are supported by facts and then checks sources) Moderators (moderate how students positively interact with one another) Person who posts opening arguments (2 students assigned opening arguments – pro and con) Rebuttal people (12) Questions posing people (6) 2nd round of rebuttals (6) Floor open for the remaining students Closing arguments (2)
Within the structure of a formal debate, the students hold a respectful and well-supported discussion. In assigning the students deliberate roles, the responsibility shifts to the students to monitor their own behaviour and the information being presented. The emphasis in this scenario is on the process of holding a discussion and furthering the conversation/dialogue, not coming to an ultimate right or wrong conclusion.
CHECKLIST FOR QUALITY:
Did you....
Identify your authorship team? Yes
Articulate your purpose? Yes
Identify your target audience? Yes
Identify your genre or message type? Yes
Outline the key content of your message? Yes
Articulate the values communicated in your message? Yes
Articulate creative techniques (and examples) you will use to hold your audience's attention? Yes
Pre-Production Plan Template
- Who are the members of your authorship team?
David Quinn and Laura Morrison- What is your purpose? (e.g., informative, entertaining, persuasive)
Eliminating the trolls and lurkers.The purpose of our lesson plan is to teach students how to meaningfully interact and exist in an online environment – to develop students’ face-to-face and digital communication skills, in order to maximize their online deliberative discussions (in pursuit of collaborative knowledge generation).
Students will learn how to evaluate online sources in order to support their opinions and claims, and how to carry out a positive and productive online debate.
In terms of the bigger picture, the goal of having the students become proficient in a formal online debate – supported with links to reputable sources, infographics, video clips and so on – is so students learn the value of using reputable sources in their online discussions (and knowing in what context it is appropriate to use each source as a support).
The goal is also to have students develop the habits of mind needed to have productive and meaningful dialogues, as the longterm goal is for students to be able to engage in deliberative discussions in various online forums.
Students will learn discussion-forum community standards that focus on: non-inflammatory claims and an expectation of all posters to self-monitor the community for quality and content.
Finally, at the end of the unit, students will be able to identify the similarities, differences in face-to-face versus online interactions (specifically synchronous and asynchronous) and the affordances of both types of interactions.
- Who is your specific target audience?
Intermediate/Secondary school students (grades 7 – 10)- What genre or type of message do you wish to share with others?
Students will be creating a discussion forum. While we will be choosing to use a free online discussion forum for teachers, the skills they learn in this lesson will be transferable to other online forums – from moodles to blogs to tweets to Facebook and so on.- What is the key content of your message?
Our message to students is that the substance and delivery of their message matters – particularly when it comes to encouraging discussion and advancing understanding.- What values will be communicated through image, language, and sound?
Through this lesson, we want to teach, reinforce and perpetuate a respect for all voices and perspectives. Furthermore, we want to foster in students the desire to engage in collaborative and democratic discussions where there is a mutual desire to seek the truth and clarify concepts/ideas. As this will be taught using face-to-face and online interactions (synchronous and asynchronous), we want to highlight to students the importance of giving time for thought and having concrete/reputable sources to substantiate one’s claims.- What creative techniques will you use to attract and hold audience attention?
We will begin the unit with an exploration of what are reputable online sources using the fake activism website devoted to the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus: http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/Students will explore the various components of this site and deconstruct the elements that are misleading and make it seem like a reputable source.
The students will also explore the multitude of online sources they could potentially draw from when supporting a claim: video news reports, news articles, scholarly articles, expert sites, infographics, and so on. Furthermore, they will be able to determine when it may be appropriate to use each source and why, when supporting a claim.
When this is finished, the students will explore some controversial issues, ultimately choosing one topic with which to hold a debate: http://www.procon.org/
To model a successful online discussion that draws on multimedia support sources, an example will be shown to students.
When the students have chosen their topic, each side will spend some time crafting their opening argument, which will be limited to a certain number of characters (as in a Tweet, drawing on students out of school digital literacies) and will present their opening topic in class. This is the start of a face-to-face debate to stir up controversy and emotion in the students and incite interest in the issue. The purpose of this is so that when it is time to move the debate to the online forum, they are invested enough that they want to engage in the discussion and share their opinions.
The opening statement is then posted to an online forum where the students begin to debate the issue.
The debating roles are decided on by the students (teacher may act as facilitator if necessary)
The Debating Roles include:
Claim checkers (check claims are supported by facts and then checks sources)
Moderators (moderate how students positively interact with one another)
Person who posts opening arguments (2 students assigned opening arguments – pro and con)
Rebuttal people (12)
Questions posing people (6)
2nd round of rebuttals (6)
Floor open for the remaining students
Closing arguments (2)
Within the structure of a formal debate, the students hold a respectful and well-supported discussion. In assigning the students deliberate roles, the responsibility shifts to the students to monitor their own behaviour and the information being presented. The emphasis in this scenario is on the process of holding a discussion and furthering the conversation/dialogue, not coming to an ultimate right or wrong conclusion.
CHECKLIST FOR QUALITY: